Short Trips and Sidesteps
Edited by Stephen Cole and Jacqueline Rayner
It’s time for our third and final round of Short Trips. (Books that are, ironically, longer than the novels.) This one promises offbeat interpretations of Doctor Who ideas, and it brings in Jac Rayner, a name I associate with good writing. I’m optimistic, but also sad that for whatever reason this is our last one. (No I’m not doing the Big Finish ones. I took one look at eBay and my eyes nearly melted out of my skull.)
NB: The introduction is an adorable time capsule that name-checks The Curse Of Fatal Death as a sign of freshness and innovation in the series. I’ve still got the video!
*
The Longest Story In The World
By Paul Magrs
Paul Magrs writes about a storyteller — it’s very much in his wheelhouse. What’s unusual is the suggestion that we’re looking at an alternate Susan and First Doctor, with her telling him endless tales of the travels he will one day have, and him disbelieving them. It’s flavourful but soon over with, which is a pleasing irony given the title, but nevertheless it’s the sort of story where you go “oh, are we done?”
*
A Town Called Eternity, Part One
By Lance Parkin and Mark Clapham
More Short Trips experimented with multi-part stories and it looks like those are back. I just hope this one sticks the landing. Part One is a very fast-moving bit of fun with the Fifth Doctor and Peri in the old West, facing a conundrum that manages to involve the fountain of youth, a significant piece of continuity from Planet Of Fire and dinosaurs. It’s a laugh, and I enjoyed the recognition of Peri still adjusting to her new life. The characterisation of the Fifth Doctor leans puritanical enough to risk being a parody, but at least he gets to wear a Stetson.
NB: The Doctor says “I quite liked my grandfather — what I remember of him.” I wonder if that’s meant to be an Infinity Doctors nod or some such.
*
Special Occasions: 1. The Not-So-Sinister Sponge
By Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman
The Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive on a planet made entirely of sweets. As you’d expect from the authors this is Season 17 on steroids (or, I suppose, too many sweets) but if you’re in the mood for a daft confection this will probably do. Gag-wise I thought “Masterbakers” was pushing it, but I enjoyed the cutaway where Romana seemingly experiences the most blockbusting episode of Doctor Who ever and we all miss it.
*
Nothing At The End Of The Lane, Part One: The Valiant Woman
By Daniel O’Mahony
Another story in multiple parts? They should have called this book Short Trips In Small Doses.
This is a very evocative (er, part) story about schoolteacher Barbara Wright suspecting that something isn’t right about her student Susan Foreman, whilst being plagued by visions of impossible dangers and suffering from a mysterious mouth wound. This feels like an Unbound story (one of the promised “Side Steps”) and as it’s incomplete I’ve no idea where it’s going. I’m intrigued though by its uncanny almost-the-sameness.
*
Countdown To TV Action
By Gary Russell
At last we have a one-and-done. This is another very light story, either parodying or sincerely imitating (I wouldn’t know the difference) the run of Doctor Who comics from the 1970s named in the title. Pertwee here is a rather blunt version of himself happily answering to “Dr Who”. He’s off to solve a faintly Dæmons-esque mystery in a small town that involves killer trees. I’ve no idea how similar this is to the source material but Gary Russell has a good handle on the peculiar humour of the medium. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
NB 1: I liked this meta nudge towards BBC Books and Audio Visuals/Big Finish, which Russell was busy with at the time: “‘[We’ll be] forced to say lines and make moves predetermined by others until one day someone decides we’ve outlived our usefulness and we get cancelled. Or transferred to some other less popular medium, like books. Or worse —’ Dr Who shuddered — ‘audio!’”
NB 2: And here he gets points for sheer clairvoyance: “The powers-that-be have created a new channel. BBC4 will be devoted to nothing but educational programmes.”
*
The Queen Of Eros
By Trevor Baxendale
The Eighth Doctor almost gets married in this Aztecs-ish adventure, where alien Queen Asheya takes a liking to him while the TARDIS and Sam are imprisoned. The novelty of an Eighth-Doctor-and-Sam story caught me off guard, somehow it feels like years since I was reading about just these two. Sam doesn’t get a lot to do (typical) but her humour is dead on, and the Doctor’s awkward attempts to reason with Asheya are quite compelling, as is the real hint of romance. She’s an interesting figure as well.
*
The Android Maker Of Calderon IV
By Miche Docherty
New writer alert! This is pretty much a setup and a punchline, but it’s very funny. A man on a world that has been visited and sorted out by the Doctor isn’t too happy about the result, and he plots his revenge involving murderous android duplicates. Then he is thwarted by bad timing. Lots of fun here — but I must say, it’s a bit of a madcap collection, this one.
*
Revenants
By Peter Anghelides
This was a pleasant surprise. Peter Anghelides has brought back the future Doctor from More Short Trips — who I have since learned is the “Merlin Doctor” alluded to in Battlefield and then described in Ben Aaronovitch’s novelisation. (Not very tall, scraggly red hair, bangles on his wrist, yellow waistcoat, big afghan coat. For some reason I picture him as Barrie Ingham.) In this one the Doctor and Guin — his current companion, a parent, divorcee and museum director — investigate a time experiment on a space station, only to find themselves stuck in a time loop. Time loops are tricky things to write and this one threatens to get (forgive me) repetitive, but the sparkling dynamic between this Doctor and his academic companion kept me engaged.
*
Please Shut The Gate
By Stephen Lock
New writer! The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe visit Mars only to discover that the Doctor has been to this exact spot before, with some embarrassing consequences that are about to get even worse. This perfectly captures Troughton’s brand of scruffy chaos (you could interpret a line here to say that he hasn’t washed his trousers since the Ben and Polly era — plausible tbh) and it ties in amusingly with, or so I assume from a quick Google search, the ill-fated Mars Climate Orbiter landing in 1999. Very jolly stuff.
*
Turnabout Is Fair Play
By Graeme Burk
Another new writer! We’ve got a very fun premise here with Peri and the Sixth Doctor body-swapped. The story is from Peri’s POV as she improvises her way through an encounter with the sort of megalomaniac the Doctor is good at putting a stop to. She does quite well using a mix of her own botanical knowledge and a Doctorly sort of vamping. Peri’s natural grouchiness comes through in spades. My only negative here would be the too-easy concessions to the Sixth Doctor being overweight. I get that narrators can be subjective and therefore derogatory, and jokes are just jokes, but much like Tegan getting nastily personal about Adric in Divided Loyalties calling the Doctor “Blubbo the Time Lord” here seems a little much.
*
Special Occasions: 2. Do You Love Anyone Enough?
By Norman Ashby
Short Trips and pseudonyms go together like two sticky go-together type things, so it’s maybe no surprise to see one here. We can perhaps assume that this was written by whoever was range editor at the time, or otherwise Steve Cole, known pseudonym fanatic. It’s surprising however that it’s this pseudonym, a very specific one employed by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln for The Dominators.
Anyway! This is the shortest trip so far, a one-pager with the Fourth Doctor and Romana watching the end of the universe to celebrate Valentine’s Day. I won’t spoil the joke alluded to by the title, except to say that if you get it, you probably have achy joints and bad eyesight at your age. It’s fine; the choice of space/time location feels Douglas Adams-y, which seems appropriate for the pair.
*
Nothing At The End Of The Lane, Part Two: The Watchers On The Walls
By Daniel O’Mahony
We return to Barbara, who apparently did not try to get into that rather odd police box at the end of Part One and is still having difficulty at school. She’s having fainting fits and hallucinations, mostly about nuclear Armageddon, but some of it is about something else altogether. The sinister quality of what looks to be Doctor Who itself breaking into her life made me think of Robert Shearman’s Deadline. Barbara’s nervous inroads to a friendship with Ian are (deliberately) painful to see. This now seems like it will eventually tally up with An Unearthly Child, more or less, but I just don’t know for sure. It’s enormously atmospheric stuff.
*
Dr Who And The House On Oldark Moor
By Justin Richards
He’s only gone and written one about the Cushing Doctor! Set shortly after the Roman epilogue of Dr. Who And The Daleks, this one finds the castaways on a moor in Britain, visiting a not-so-subtly named house. (Oldark.) There they find a Gothic mystery perhaps more in keeping with Hammer than Amicus. The mad scientist is named Tarkin, which could perhaps be another link to Cushing.
The movie characters are evoked very well, with Cushing’s upstanding and bristly Dr Who, Ian the bumbling boob, Susan the bravest and most inquisitive one of the bunch and Barbara still thanklessly reporting for duty. It reads like a colourful ghost story.
*
Gone Too Soon
By Christopher M. Wadley
New writer! (Almost getting bored of pointing that out. What a nice problem to have.) Some time after The Trial Of A Time Lord the Sixth Doctor somehow finds out about his impending doom. At first upset and then defiant, he decides to make the most of the time he has left. He makes a statement, has some historical fun with the Beatles and intervenes at a few important moments in time. This one packs a lot into a few pages and if anyone was going to rage against the dying of the light, it would be Colin’s Doctor. I particularly enjoyed seeing the Doctor actually do the sort of historical hobnobbing he’s always alluding to.
*
Reunion
By Jason Loborik
New guy again! This is a rather grim bit of sci-fi about an unhappy accountant being lured onto a train along with a lot of what appear to be strangers. The Second Doctor arrives to help thwart an unpleasant creature who has been on Earth for centuries. It’s very visceral at points and it shows a more controlling Troughton Doctor than the earlier Stephen Lock story. Pretty good, but I don’t think it quite digs into the horrifying ramifications of the plot.
NB: Is this Season 6B? I can’t think when else the Second Doctor would be on his own like this.
*
Planet Of The Bunnoids
By Harriet Green
New writer, and this one’s a lady! Our cup runneth over.
This time we get the First Doctor, Vicki and Steven facing off against malevolent robot rabbits and a disembodied force that feeds on emotions. This leads to the Doctor instigating a virtual fairytale for his two companions in which he is cast, perfectly btw, as the Fairy Godmother. Then there’s some cheeky use of the Doctor’s guilt around his companions in order to feed the monsters. A very enjoyable runaround, and it’s interesting that we have two stories in a row with monstrous beings who just want to go home. (Both stories draw opposite conclusions about whether this should be allowed, however.)
*
Monsters
By Tara Samms
Steve Cole alert. This is quite an urban and exciting tale for the Seventh Doctor and Ace, who are looking for monsters in the wrong places. Things get nasty for young siblings Kirsty and David, who are both having a rough childhood in different ways. Then the ending rolls along and things somehow look even worse for Kirsty now. I suppose Cole makes a compelling enough point about monsters hiding in plain sight (although, do sick people count?) and it works memorably as a horror tale, with excellent characterisation for the two regulars, but eesh, it’s ’orrible.
*
Special Occasions: 3. Better Watch Out: Better Take Care
By Steve Burford
Continuing this jolly series of (hey, new writer! I didn’t forget to point it out!) the Fourth Doctor and Romana in celebratory mood, we now have them breaking into a certain old friend’s abode to mark a certain most wonderful time of the year. This is another nice little confection. These aren’t really world-beaters but they’re delightful.
*
Face Value
By Steve Lyons
We’re getting our money’s worth with the “side steps” idea now, with a sequel to The Ultimate Adventure — the 1989 Doctor Who stage musical that nowadays mostly exists as fan race memory. Or perhaps, shared hallucination. (Also, a Big Finish adaptation! Buuusiness is business…) You don’t need to know much about it to find this funny, although Lyons does manage to make reference to the three actors who played the Doctor during its run, and he squeezes in a few musical numbers too. Fans of Zog (perhaps the lowest-hanging-fruit alien name in all of Doctor Who) will not be disappointed. Honestly though, it’s a good and funny story in its own right. I loved the idea that some very dodgy villains were inadvertently taken over by some other ones, who had no idea the first lot were even up to no good.
*
Storm In A Tikka
By Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
At first it looks like Tucker and Perry are going to give Steve Lyons a run for his money, geek-wise: this is a sequel to Dimensions In Time, also set in Walford, which then bothers to set up the Seventh Doctor and Ace’s educational appearance in Search Out Science. Nerd alert! The actual story though is bit of not-particularly-EastEnders-y action adventure with a fair amount of bloodshed, concerning the Thuggee goddess Kali. (I’m not entirely sure what to make of this one from a cultural standpoint. Shall we move on?) It’s more noisy than funny, but you’ve got to admire the silly setting.
*
Nothing At The End Of The Lane, Part Three: The Only Living Thing
By Daniel O’Mahony
We answer the conundrum of just what this story is about — it’s not an Unbound version of An Unearthly Child after all, but the “real” Barbara suffering an attack from a psychic monster whilst adventuring with the Doctor and friends. Before she finds this out there is a disturbing altercation with “Grandfather” in Totters Yard; shaken out of her delirium, Barbara shares quite a sweet moment with the real Doctor, where she thinks of Ian in a way that puts unusual focus on his vulnerability as a man out of time. I would happily have finished there, but this is Daniel O’Mahony, so we plunge right back into the nightmare before he lets us leave. Got it all figured out, have you? Nice try. All in all, perhaps the most interesting thing in the book.
*
A Town Called Eternity, Part Two
By Lance Parkin and Mark Clapham
The second part of this is suitably action packed, with an eyebrow-raising moment where the Fifth Doctor runs out of patience with a familiar rascal and shoots him point blank. Broadly I think the best bits and biggest surprises of this story are in the first half, but it’s still a satisfyingly cartoonish whole.
*
Special Occasions: 4. Playing With Toys
By David Agnew
One last pseudonym — Steve, is that you? — sees the Fourth Doctor and Romana finish their series of wistful mini-breaks by visiting the room where the Key To Time was once held; they ruminate and (in Romana’s case) nod off. Then we end the book on a spooky note, as a familiar toy-themed menace suddenly takes control of the Doctor. Like a few stories here, I’m not sure what I’m meant to take away from that, but I suppose it makes a change from whimsy.
*
(And then, hidden after the bumf at the back of the book…)
Vrs
By Lwrnc Mls
A solid gag involving famous monsters and vowels. This review is two words longer than the story. I checked.
*
And that’s the end of Short Trips, at least as far as BBC Books are concerned. I think they rose to the occasion and delivered something colourful and weird. I didn’t always get it, but it’s okay to be puzzled sometimes. Probably the best of the three volumes.
9/10
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